Beginning with a _tu quoque_, that the Arminian doctrine
involves consequences as bad as the Calvinistic view, he proceeds to
object to the term "author of sin," though he ends by admitting that, in
a certain sense, it is applicable; he proves from Scripture, that God is
the disposer and orderer of sin; and then, by an elaborate false analogy
with the darkness resulting from the absence of the sun, endeavours to
suggest that he is only the author of it in a negative sense; and,
finally, he takes refuge in the conclusion that, though God is the
orderer and disposer of those deeds which, considered in relation to
their agents, are morally evil, yet, inasmuch as His purpose has all
along been infinitely good, they are not evil relatively to him.
And this, of course, may be perfectly true; but if true, it is
inconsistent with the attribute of omnipotence. It is conceivable that
there should be no evil in the world; that which is conceivable is
certainly possible; if it were possible for evil to be non-existent, the
maker of the world, who, though foreknowing the existence of evil in
that world, did not prevent it, either did not really desire it should
not exist, or could not prevent its existence. It might be well for
those who inveigh against the logical consequences of necessarianism to
bethink them of the logical consequences of theism; which are not only
the same, when the attribute of Omniscience is ascribed to the Deity,
but which bring out, from the existence of moral evil, a hopeless
conflict between the attributes of Infinite Benevolence and Infinite
Power, which, with no less assurance, are affirmed to appertain to the
Divine Being.
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